Stanford,
City of Palo Alto announce proposal to provide
sites for new middle school, city community
center

President John
Hennessy and Palo Alto Mayor Liz Kniss today
announced a proposal that could permit the city's
Terman School to be reopened as a middle school
while providing a location for a new Palo Alto
Community Center.

At a press
conference at Palo Alto City Hall, Hennessy said
that Stanford would lease six acres of prime
university land at the intersection of El Camino
Real and Page Mill Road to the city for $1 a year
for 51 years as a site for a city community
center.

"We hope and believe that this proposal
will enable the city, the Jewish Community
Center, and the School District to swiftly
resolve issues related to the location of a
middle school and the continued provision of
critical community services," Hennessy said in
prepared remarks.

The city and
the university have been working with the school
district and the Jewish Community Center for
nearly a year to find a location for a new middle
school while ensuring the continued provision of
first class services to the community. Supporters
of the JCC feared that it might be displaced by
the new school and that another location might
not be available in Palo Alto.

In his remarks,
Hennessy emphasized the university's willingness
to take bold steps to help to resolve the issues.
"We have committed
significant university assets to make this
proposal, but we are pleased to be able to do
it, he said. " We are, after all,
active and permanent neighbors and members of a
larger community. We earnestly seek an
improvement in our community relations and a
better working relationship with our neighbors.
Above all, we want to demonstrate what Stanford
and its neighbors can achieve by working together
in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect.
I hope that this solution, together with the
recent solution of the first hole of the golf
course, marks the beginning of a new era of more
effective cooperation and collaboration.

"This is
an exciting proposal that could potentially lead
to a favorable solution for all parties,"
said Mayor Kniss. "While we need to perform
due diligence on all the ramifications, I look
forward to taking this exciting proposal quickly
to the city Council and the public."

In exchange for
the lease, Stanford would be entitled over the
next 25 years to develop sites in the Stanford
Research Park equivalent to the larger of 100,000
square feet or the amount of development the city
puts on the site at El Camino and Page Mill,
which is known as the Mayfield site.

Details of the
proposal were spelled out in an October 5 letter
to Kniss from Larry Horton, Stanford's director
of government and community relations. The letter
notes that Stanford is willing to offer the
Mayfield site now, even though the university may
not exercise its transferred development rights
in the Research Park for many years.

The
university's offer is contingent upon approval by
Santa Clara County of a modified General Use
Permit that is acceptable to Stanford, and final
resolution of any litigation that might arise in
connection with the General Use Permit and the
Community Plan, Horton wrote.

Mayor Kniss remarked,
"This is a good example of the type of
collaboration that a good city-university
relationship fosters. Again, we need to consider
all the ramifications of this proposal, but we
are grateful to Stanford for coming forward with
this offer and look forward to a resolution
favorable to all parties."